The document also highlights the Kazak leaders' affinity for alcohol and dancing. U.S. Embassy officials in the capital of Astana observed Kazak Prime Minister Masimov at one of the city's trendiest nightclubs, where he was seen dancing alone on an elevated platform.

"His companions quickly tired but Masimov remained," the cable said, "dancing alone and animatedly on the stage for another 15-20 minutes."

On a separate occasion, the country's Defense Minister Akhmetov showed up for a meeting with a senior U.S. defense department official in a drunken stupor.

"Slouching back in his chair and slurring all kinds of Russian participles -- Akhmetov explained to this very senior guest that he had just been at a cadet graduation reception 'toasting Kazakhstan's newly-commissioned officers,"' the cable reads. "Who was toasted more -- the Defense Minister or the cadets -- is a matter of pure speculation."

American Dentist Makes Harrowing Escape from Iran

Another cable obtained by Wikileaks details a 75-year-old Los Angeles dentist's harrowing escape from Iran on horseback in January after officials in Tehran confiscated his passport.

Hossein Ghanbarzadeh Vahedi, a U.S. citizen of Iranian descent, paid $7,500 to two drug smugglers who led him on an extraordinary three-day trek into Turkey, including a 14-hour overnight ride through the mountains in temperatures below freezing.

A "visibly shaken" Vahedi ended up at the U.S. consulate in Ankara, suffering only from "some aches and pains," the cable said. Officials later helped him avoid deportation back to Iran by Turkish authorities and fly home to the U.S. to reunite with his family.

Vahedi had traveled to Tehran in May 2008 to visit his parents' gravesite and spent an uneventful four weeks there with family and friends. But when he tried to leave the country on June 6, authorities confiscated his passport and refused to let him leave.

Wikileaks Secrets Include Many Anecdotes

Authorities sought a $150,000 fine to "make the process move more quickly" and assurances that his sons – popular Persian pop singers who use "occasional anti-regime rhetoric" – would end their music business, he told consular officials, according to the cable.

But after seven months of unsuccessful appeals before an Iranian court, Vahedi became desperate, believing a covert escape would be his only option of getting home.

Vahedi weighed being a stowaway on a ship across the Persian Gulf into the UAE; crossing through Baluchistan in southeast Iran into Pakistan; or, venturing into Iraq with hopes of connecting with U.S. military forces. He settled on a fourth option: crossing Iran's mountainous northwest border into Turkey.

On Jan. 7, 2009, the daring journey began when he set out on horseback in the cold darkness as two paid escorts led the way.

Vahedi, who was not properly dressed for the frigid temperatures, had the escorts "physically hug him to keep him warm," according to the cable. At one point during the treacherous climb, he fell from the horse and down into the woods.

"He really believed he was going to die by freezing to death on a mountainside," consular officials wrote in the cable.

Once in Turkey, Vahedi recovered briefly in a halfway house before taking a 10-hour bus ride to Ankara, where he found refuge in the U.S. consulate.

Embassy officials quietly deterred Turkish authorities from deporting Vahedi, who was technically an illegal immigrant to Turkey, back to Iran. He flew to the U.S. on Jan. 13.